Publisher's Summary

Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling debut novel,
Everything Is Illuminated, wowed critics on its way to winning several literary prizes, including Book of the Year honors from the
Los Angeles Times. It has been published in 24 countries and will soon be a major motion picture. Foer's talent continues to shine in this sometimes hilarious and always heartfelt follow-up.
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is a precocious Francophile who idolizes Stephen Hawking and plays the tambourine extremely well. He's also a boy struggling to come to terms with his father's death in the World Trade Center attacks. As he searches New York City for the lock that fits a mysterious key his father left behind, Oskar discovers much more than he could have imagined.Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a masterfully imagined novel from an author Time hails as "a certified wunderkind".

Critic Reviews

2005 Audie Award Nominee, Multi-Voiced Performance
"Piercing and so funny." (The Bookseller) "[Oskar's] first-person narration of his journey is arrestingly beautiful, and readers won't soon forget him." (Booklist) "Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel is everything one hoped it would be: ambitious, pyrotechnic, riddling, and above all...extremely moving. An exceptional achievement." (Salman Rushdie) "Brilliant....Unafraid to show his traumatized characters' constant groping for emotional catharsis, Foer demonstrates once again that he is one of the few contemporary writers willing to risk sentimentalism in order to address great questions of truth, love, and beauty." (Publishers Weekly)

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Customer Reviews

Hard book to review

I'm torn about this book. Audio books have 3 ingredients--the story, the writing, and the narration. The story in this book is so, so. I'd give it a 3. The narration is by three people, the narration of the boy is a 5 and the other 2 are 3s. The real reason to listen to this book is the writing which is a 5. The writing is unique and thought provoking. If you want a book to listen to while you do something else or to be entertained--this is not the book. This is one of those books that requires a little work on your part to really enjoy it.

Suffused my being...

By far the best audio book I've experienced thus far. I have not read the print version and so, perhaps, am not prone to the sense of "something missing" in the verbalization of what, I assume, are visual representations in the book. I found the book to be more like a play in that the narrators are more like fantastic "radio" actors. They perfectly evoke their characters without over-emoting.

As for the content of the book, it's breathtaking. My favorite character is the child, Oskar. Here's an example of the warped mirror of dry irony created when a child views the world with intelligent eyes. Oskar's so very active and acute mind is unsullied by adult resignation. That's why he breaks your heart with his unrelenting and purely innocent attempts to understand his unbearable loss. I found myself rooting furiously for success in Oskar's mission, knowing all the while that it was, of course, futile.

The other characters are also very compelling, involved as they are in their own crushing losses, confusions and disappointments. Their tales unfold more subtlely than Oskar's. At their first introductions, I found myself somewhat at sea, not certain as to what was "going on". Have faith, dear listener, because the mosaic becomes a clear picture as time goes by and all the characters become enmeshed in a greater story.

There is much sadness in this book, but it is elevated to a kind of ecstatic melancholy by the objective simplicity of the writing. I found my emotions fully engaged but never manipulated or exploited. I was not depressed by the experience, but exhillerated. And there's a fair amount of redemption at the end of the book.

This book is positively magic, made all the more so by the exquisite performances of the narrators. Can't recommend it highly enough!